Featuring these two pictures, one of Death and one of our friends Rough Francis.

(the first by Tammy Hackney, the second by Paul Boisvert for the NY Times)

Nice work, you guys!!!!  Here’s the LINK.

Less than a week until the show that Tick Tick is very eager to see:

SISTER SUVI, SHAPES AND SIZES, NAT BALDWIN, and RYAN POWER, at the 5th Element!  It’s on Thursday, the 12th!

Getting awfully excited to see Sister Suvi.

Featuring Merrill Garbus (aka TUNE-YARDS, who I posted about being really impressed by last fall), Patrick Gregoire of Islands, and a third dude whom I don’t know, but am sure is awesome, too!

You can read a little about them on Said the Gramophone, the verbose Canadian music blog.

And you can listen to their new EP here on their website.  May I recommend that you listen to “New Orange Bike.”  You can buy the EP there via paypal, as well.

They are just on a little mini-tour with Shapes and Sizes, basically to here and Portland, Maine, before they tour down to SXSW in mid-March with Takka Takka.

Sister Suvi

Very flatteringly, one of the songs off of Colin Clary’s new EP on London’s WeePOP label, is called “Tick Tick”!  Rumor has it that it’s even about Tick Tick!

Thanks Colin!!!!

Go buy it here! Only 3 quid!

It’s called Every Little Thing Counts.  Too true, Colin, too true.

And I’m hoping that he might play this song:

On March 12 at the Fifth Element.

I’m hoping he might also play this Arthur Russell song:

watch?v=En_FVj9UXbY

I am happy to say that we had an awesome show last night at the Monkey House on Valentines Day!

Beginning with Dana’s sugar cookies.

Then, Let’s Whisper with some rock solid love songs — singing about the Beltway in the early morning — sounding nice as a duo on guitar, and sounding really solid as a full band with Steve and J on bass and drums.  Dana and Colin are off to play the London PopFest at the end of February.

The Depreciation Guild — as a two-person as their drummer was sick back at the motel.  There’s nothing like a long tour in February.  Some nice projections, and I was transported back to “Siamese Dream” era Smashing Pumpkins, which is in no way a bad thing.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart was a real treat!  They know what kind of music they like, and they’re doing it very well, even perfectly.  They’ve distilled and gathered up a lot of the best sounds of the 90s.  And of course, they are a well-dressed, good looking, dynamic band.  Most importantly, they’re NICE!  I know that usually comes with the territory when you’re an indie pop band, but they seemed really genuinely grateful for all of their recent success, and also just grateful to have people come out on Valentines day in a town they’ve never played in.  There was a good crowd, too — lots of people and in the best Burlington way, a nice spectrum of ages and lots of shared enthusiasm and goodwill.

It’s probably going to take several posts to get all this across, since we have so much going on this weekend, not to mention blogging about the incredible visitation from the paradise that is northwestern Quebec that happened on Friday (more on this later).  I’ll start with my excitement about the jazz show we have coming up on SATURDAY.

We’re lucky to be hosting the mi3, a very very excellent jazz trio from the Boston area.  The show is on Saturday, at the Firehouse Gallery.  Come to have your ears tickled!

We feel lucky about it, because ever so often, we get some great jazz shows.  It all began when Greg Davis was out of town and so asked us to present the Vandermark 5. That’s the Chicago-based group of the brilliant Ken Vandermark.  They totally blew us away, and even better, they keep sending all their other projects, and their side projects, and their friend’s projects, back to us.

They are all super nice guys, but our favorite might be Tim Daisy….an excellent drummer and teller of old-timey jazz stories (”you know what Dizzy Gillespie always used to say, etc etc”).

The mi3 are doing a little Northeast tour, bringing their fresh foundations in free jazz and blending them with their interest in rock music.  I was pleased to read that they had a residency at the Abbey Lounge in Somerville (well, I think it’s exactly right on the Cambridge/Somerville line), a scruffy little rock club and in fact one of my affectionate favorites in the Boston area.  Check them out! I don’t go see jazz very often, but when I do, good jazz, and especially free jazz, freshens up my mind in a way that nothing else really does.

So come on Saturday and get your ears massaged by jazz!  Get a new perspective on all that rock music you listen to!  Hear some people who are in command of their instruments!  They’re planning to make lots of noise!

Well I was totally blown away when I heard Elfin Saddle perform again after nearly two years. The set, plugged in and loud was pregnant, powerful, and mysterious, like a soundtrack to an epic, haunted myth. While listening, I was overwhelmed with the feeling that they have totally embraced and incorporated the energy and attitude of their home, forcing the revelation that we all are profoundly affected by our environment. Their transformation, made as a result of circumstance and location, is truly awesome and I feel privelaged to have seen it. Thank you Emi and Jordan!

Clues = “Unleash the Banshee Horde!”

Post Handy's Sated/Seated

This past Hallow’s eve found us inside the sanctuary of the BCA gallery listening to the mesmerizing sounds of Horse Feathers, Matthew Loiacono, and Paddy Reagan.  

Tonight’s excellent show has me reminiscing about our first Elfin Saddle show, nearly two years ago.  After seeing the duo at Pop Montreal, Graham and Dale contacted Emi and Jordan and asked them to play a double show in Vermont.

The first night they played at the now-defunct Tick Tick Studios, with the now-defunct band Fighter.

The second night they played at the church in Stannard, VT, which is my beloved, 150-people populated hometown.  It’s in the Northeast Kingdom, between Hardwick and Lyndonville, basically.

image stolen from False45th

It was early December, and the church has no electricity — it’s beautiful inside, with white plaster walls and an egg-shell blue ceiling.  There’s an old copper kerosene chandelier, and it’s heated by a woodstove at the back.  It was wildly windy outside, and by the time we arrived around 4pm, which was causing the stove to backdraft crazily.  It was so smoky inside that from the back of the church you couldn’t see the stage.  When a big gust of wind would come up, you could see puffs of smoke billowing out of the stove.

Graham and I had come a few days earlier, and decorated inside with pink balloon candle lanterns, and with all kinds of wintry branches and brush.  We hemmed and hawed and decided to do the show anyway, and it was well worth it!  I had done my press work well and all sorts of people of all ages turned out to the show.  We billed it as “original music” instead of indie rock or indie folk or something like that, because that’s more true to what it was, and often its frankly just the concept of people writing their own music is what’s exciting to me, and the Northeast Kingdom doesn’t see a lot of music, original or otherwise.

Here they are in all their woodland-fantasy glory

Acoustically, the church is very bright and loud, a powerful place for unamplified music and no real need to strain anything to be heard.  It’s an austere, 19th century experience, sitting in the cold on a pew, and squinting with your eyes burning from the woodsmoke and the kerosene.  Elfin Saddle is just two people with some ideas, patience, and a sensible and heartfelt connection to traditional music.  Emi plays this creative and compact drum kit, with all sorts of little bells attached all around, her grandmother’s ukelele, and the musical saw.  Jordan plays mostly just guitar, and they both sing and play more instruments that I’m forgetting.  Their songs are original, but I think their music is traditional in the sense that it’s rhythmic, involves many acoustic and folk instruments, warbly and simple singing, is interested in storytelling and imaginative worlds, and it’s also very direct.  There’s none of that taking on the coal miner’s persona, or being very folksy, just patience and care and imagination.

They have an EP available from Montreal’s new villavillanola and for sure will have something for sale tonight!

Yesterday, there was an article in the NY Times about CMJ.  It was nice to see them mention up some bands that have played Tick Tick shows, going on to be highlights in the big city, including Arbouretum, Wye Oak, and of course, WOMEN, who stopped in Burlington on their way down to the festival.  Well done, beloved bands!!!!

But the NY Times article is missing the point.  The article is basically about how nobody there is about to make lots of money, and “the large-scale music business might as well have been on another planet.”  Well, dude, “indie” can still be short for “independent.”  The reporter doesn’t actually talk to any of the bands about what they actually get out of CMJ, or what their financial or career goals actually are.  I bet that if he did, he’d find that there are many different ideas about what success is, or how realistic bands are about it. Some musicians see CMJ as an ultimate attainment.  Some bands are grateful to be on tour at all.  Some musicians resent showcases like CMJ or Pop Montreal for the degree of industry involvement they incorporate.

But I should cut him a break, since his role writing for the NY Times about this is to explain indie music for the NY T’s boomer readership, by writing sentences like “In the 21st century it’s more important to draw listeners to a Myspace or iTunes or Emusic page than to find a limited-edition vinyl manufacturer, as in the ’80s.”  Although that’s wrong too, since vinyl manufacturing has experienced a 77% increase from 2007 to 2008.

Too bad records are made out of oil!